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Jane D. Blog

Emotional Striptease Blog: Tales of Me, Myself and ADD

Archives: November 2007

Taming the Tiger

In ADD group therapy, I share the part about brain blips, paper piles, all the things on the symptom list, but myself? I don't want to talk about it.

Last night I was late again for the guinea pig pow-wow. I haven't been on time once. So what if the psychiatrist jots something down and touts me as the group delinquent? When I walk in, all heads turn. I haven't seen them in close to a month.

I sit at the same seat every time, and am always sandwiched between the reed-thin blonde and a chubby middle-aged woman who is very jittery. Of all things, she needs candy, soda, and magic pills (it might be Vicodin) to calm her down.

She taps at the table with her fake nails, the click and clack on my ears like a buzzing mosquito. She swings wildly between laughter and white-hot anger, lashing out when one of us dishes advice to her. I feel for the big beefy guy who always gets a verbal lashing from her. He just means to help.

They nominate me to share first because I'd missed two sessions, and because maybe they'd missed me. Got me thinking that maybe I was unconsciously rebelling. I'm not crazy, I'm not one of them, I don't have what they have. I think of myself as the observer, the intrepid reporter, and the fly on the wall. Only my ADD self is no cover, and ten years ago I wouldn't, in my wildest memory, have imagined that I'd be here.

They want to hear about turkey day and the weekend, but I keep the little romance to myself. I'm afraid that emotional strip-teasing in front of them will somehow bite me in the back.

This is my ADD self in group therapy. I choose to create a wall. I like the wall. I share the part about brain blips, memory loss, disorganization, paper piles, all the things that are on the symptom list, but myself, no, I don't want to talk about it.

But they share, they striptease without reservation.

The reed-thin woman talks about the struggles with her young son, the new job, and an adolescence as a wacky pot-drinking "life of the party." She has all of these degrees, collecting them like stamps, but struggles to keep herself focused. When she tells it, her face contorts, as if she's an actress running through a skit. It's funny, only it's really not.

The woman next to her with a thick Hispanic accent spent her Thanksgiving catching up on paperwork after her tyrant of a boss questioned her productivity.

The blonde struggled with a childhood of being yelled at by her family for simply being herself. She says she felt sidelined and that she always existed on the fringe of what was "normal."

The woman with nervous nails has been hospitalized for ADD and other disorders. When she says she wants to kill her boyfriend for messing up the laundry, I believe her.

And then there's me, my self, where to begin.

Tonight, it is perhaps the most revealing and heartbreaking of discussions. I hate when people are late, I hate broken promises, and yet how many times have I flaked out, how many times am I late? It’s as if I'm looking at myself in the mirror and really hating the whole thing. It’s as if I hate myself.

The pretty black woman looks at her hands and says that she just realized recently that she can really be annoying. There are people who are social dummies, who stand too close, who have bad breath. There are people who are obese, who take up two airline seats. But when she reflected on her life, one word buzzed in her head: inappropriate. Her words, her behavior, her existence. I feel like collapsing into a major depression.

The blonde woman says that she can't deal with too much noise. That, at family gatherings, she needs to lock herself in the bedroom and be alone; otherwise, she goes batty. I feel for her, I really do.

At the end of the session, there sits a heavy silence. I wish someone would laugh and say, "Well that was fun," but no one speaks, except to ask if we'll meet over Christmas. The answer is a resounding no, and for the first time I smile.

Desperation Sets In

I am prone to these moments of panic, the feeling that I imagine I'd have if told to walk on a tightrope across the Empire State Building.

Okay, I'm starting to get desperate again. I called the Dad up in a frenzy tonight. I am prone to these moments of panic, the feeling that I imagine I'd have if told to walk on a tightrope across the Empire State Building.

As the best friend says, "your poor father." No wonder his mantra to the sister and me is, "it's nice to find a soulmate and partner for life, but kids are definitely an option. I mean look at me I'm 61 and my duties are far from over." "Are you saying you don't like it?" I playfully asked. No response.

I can see why the fatherly duties feel like a week of eating leftovers now. I bitched and whined about the mystery man's uncommunicato. The mystery man is the latest date or potential husband-to-be. Why mystery? He's sporadic, unpredictable, can be sweet, appears, disappears, and gets as blunt as a frying pan, in the strangest way he reminds me of the she-boss, at times I love her, but most of the time I fear her and despise her for being so hard to deal with. Most of the time in cubicle land I sit there shaking in my boots, wondering what she's going to say, how is she going to react, I'm not even sure why I should care for christ's sake.

The Dad says why can't I treat the mystery man like the best friend from high school, and have zero expectations and just be myself. Laugh. Flirt. Smile. Have some fun and enjoy the moment, for God's sake. Why can't I go with the flow? Ask him about what he thought of your room (it was a pig sty with an unmade bed and dirty laundry littering the floor), talk about the stock market (I can't even do math), talk about Chuck Prince's demise (yawn), about swimming (yay), about his work (I've avoided this lest he think I'm a gold digger), tell him about your work in a very generic way, talk about movies, music, don't sit there and talk about your relationship and ask "why don't you call me or email me. Hey I've read `The Rules'" and this isn't working."

The Dad continues…But it might be good to ask him how to communicate, what's the best way to reach him if you just want to get a coffee, or shoot the breeze, but please have a drink before you do it because you don't want to be too anxious. And that is the problem I keep thinking. At the last ADD guinea pig pow wow the psychiatrist man yammered on about co-morbidity, how ADD often comes in pairs with something else like the animals on Noah's Ark. For me it's the cocktail of ADD and anxiety. Everyday I live as if I am swimming with a shark behind me. On good days I tell myself, hey it's fodder for the writer in me, but what I never tell others is that it sucks. I'd rather not have a runaway mind, a scattered brain. I'd rather not live with a silent battle of reining in what feels like wild mustangs.

Back to the guy crisis. I wonder why can't I just be myself. Why the panic? "I'm not always going to look like this," I tell the Dad. "It's normal, the biological clock is very normal," he says. How would he know, he's a guy, I think.

In a quiet moment I know I can be myself, but I wouldn't want to scare off the guy gallery. My real self is very much my ADD self. I am a bag lady, weighed down by purses, shopping bags. I am visual and am drawn into the countless stores in New York City like a magnet. In the winter it's likely I will wear four layers of clothes and forget one. I love toy stores and delight in slinkys, play-doh and pudding pops. The child in me is very alive. I will happily have ice cream for breakfast and cereal for dinner. My real self loves to crack jokes, talk dirty, my real self is sloppy and wild. But you would never know any of these things because I'm too afraid to do a striptease before anyone. It's safer to put up a Great Wall and keep these dark secrets in the closet.

Lately the magic pills, which have lost their magic, are weighing me down, making me more blue than sunny. Today I moped at work, snacking and noshing on goldfish, chocolate and anything I could get my hands on. The she-boss saw me walk by her office and shut her door right after I passed. I guess she fears that I'll walk in and deliver some more bad news.

I watched the lanky nose-picking colleague across me schmooze with the slick-tongued nemesis. They went out to lunch together. Why does this workplace so remind me of the horrors of high school? I just sat at my desk, seemingly chained to my chair, and pretended to not care when in fact I really want to be loved and accepted.

Lately I've been getting bored and tired of everything. Those Thursday night Catholic classes have become a bit of a bore. I had gone in the hopes of finding prince charming, but given that most of the people there are wearing wedding rings, my hopes have been dashed. And somehow the idea of converting to Catholicism for the sake of finding Mr. Right doesn't seem very kosher.

So I played hooky tonight and went swimming instead. The skinny Russian-American musician was there, with her sharp-as-tack snooty attitude. Her special talent is that she seems immune to cold water. Last weekend at Brighton Beach I watched her slip into the 53 degree water, swim the freestyle for a good 40 minutes, and emerge with a big grin on her face. "I could have swum another 20 minutes," she said. I started shivering just looking at her. I've nicknamed her Polar Bear girl.

Tonight the fat guy Chaz (who used to like me until I dissed him) squeezed himself into our lane. He's really slow. We'd sprint a 50 and he'd still be on the first leg of the pool. The Polar Bear girl and I were mean and made fun of him, cackling as he breathed heavily after the sprints, and slipped under the water to catch his breath. "He's going under again like a shark," I said. "No a whale," she laughed.

It felt so good to be bad. I like setting the mean streak free. I kept thinking the water works more wonders on me than Eli Lilly ever will. In the water I am free, I feel like I am flying. It got me thinking that come Monday when I see the Buddhaman I am going to tell him that the meds suck, they don't work, I've lost hope. I need a fresh start and beginning, I need to find a real shrink, one who won't try to drug me the moment I walk in. I am a person after all.

Amy

Cocktail Relief

To hold my own attention, I need to stare so deeply into a person's eyes that they must think I'm putting a voodoo spell on them.

I decided to live the "Sex and the City" high life by ditching the pool and heading to a cocktail instead. Usually I avoid these shindigs, preferring to jump into the nearest subway and sulk my way home. Tonight I decided I to accept the last minute invite to this law school fundraiser in the very fancy Rainbow Room. I'd dress up, try to act like a lady and aim to be social. This is New York after all right, why am I not living it up?

I'd never been to the Rainbow Room before. It's the sort of place I'd always fantasized the imaginary husband proposing to me with bottle of wine in hand and diamond ring in the other. I know, I know, keep dreaming.

On the 64th floor, the view of New York is extraordinary. It's like opening a jewelry box, and watching the jewels sparkle away. I could see slivers of bridges, the Empire State Building, and the ripples of what looked like river (maybe the Hudson or the East River ). I felt like I was landing in an airplane, and falling in love with New York all over again.

The fundraiser was packed with lawyers, no duh, given that they had all gone to the same law school. We the press pack were herded to a single table in the back and for the next two hours we were relegated to bad lawyer jokes and even worse lawyer speeches.

Here's a dirty secret: I actually hate socializing, I dislike the idea of flitting around the room and pretending to be pleasant, I feel nervous and jittery and so completely unnatural. I can only do it for so long. There comes a breaking point when I have an urge to run into the bathroom or into the street and be alone, and decompress. They say that too is the burden of the introverted ADD self.

The first place that I headed was the open bar where I asked, no begged, for the obligatory loosen-the-nerves Merlot. A glass down and my dimples emerged from their catatonic state.

The dinner was painfully long. I sat between a California girl who writes for a business rag, and a very cute but very short british journalist who is fresh off of the boat from London. I tried to grasp their conversations but amidst all of the color and activity, it was like pinning down Jello.

I sometimes feel like I need to stare so deeply into a person's eyes to hold my own attention, that they think I must be putting a voodoo spell on them. In this case I kept nodding and smiling at my table mates, until I felt like a toy Bobble head. At least no one could accuse me of not being pleasant.

The lawyer speeches were incredibly boring so we journalists ribbed each other, and cracked jokes about their lack of humor. We joked that the poor guy's speech should be nicknamed, "Waiting for the Punch Line."

Next to the Brit was an incredibly cute American journalist, who resembled Keanu Reeves, hot and sexy as a tamale, but I've learned to stay away from the hot ones. They are as dangerous as napalm.

For nearly three hours I tried to be fixated on the speeches, in the conversations, but instead I kept fretting about the seemingly nice guy, who seems to like me, and we seemed to have a night date yesterday but he hasn't called. I wonder why he's such a mystery to me. He seems really into me and yet why can't he get more physical with me. Why just a kiss on the cheek, maybe he's not physically attracted to me, maybe I'm thinking too much.

My mind was spinning like a lettuce in a lettuce dryer, as I picked at the main course of steak, chicken and some mashed potato that had been transformed to look like a flower. The Brit was saying something to me as my thoughts were pinballing. I didn't hear him but just nodded, tossed my hair back and laughed. It seemed to work. The Brit thought I was nice, girlish and pleasant. Better that he think I'm that then know what was really going on. We swapped business cards and wolfed down the chocolate-layer dessert.

After the epically long night we walked out of Rockefeller Center together, and I glanced at the skating rink and wondered when the tree would go up. The Saks window displays were starting to go up again reminding me that this was another year, and how quickly it went.

Chivalry Exists

I struggled to focus as the date spoke. I hope ADD doesn't prevent me from listening...

Yes there is hope. It's a rare man under 40 who actually wears a suit to a date, and buys the tickets and makes reservations before the date.

He's either really into me or a really good actor. Oh well, can't get my hopes up too high, remember this: spinster forever. But he's the nicest guy - really, really nice. I mean he's said a million nice things about me tonight and all I could do was say nice tie, I love green. He's thoughtful - hard to explain. A planner, too. He chose a really excellent restaurant. What a gentleman. Did I say the young ones didn't exist anymore? Well they do, touché - at least I have hope now.

He wanted to know, did I want cocktails first? Did I have a certain restaurant I liked? Do they make them like that anymore? It was the perfect ending to a shitty day. Lately things have been unraveling at a speedy pace.

He said we'll meet at Barnes and Nobles at 3rd Avenue and Lexington and for the oddest reason I think he means the one three blocks away. I leave work early to make it on time and then I circle around the café, once twice and three times, wait 30 minutes and tell myself this is dating apocalypse, no man is dependable, they are all late, or don't show up.

I say fuck it and go around the corner and buy pizza for dinner and sulk. I come close to not showing up at the Catholic meeting, and then on my way there I see him sitting on the steps, coffee in hand looking kind of well, surprised to see me. "Hey I was waiting for you but didn't see you," I said. When he said he'd been waiting at 3rd and Lexington, I thought, I screwed up. I wanted to kick myself. It was just so awkward, everything in my face showing as usual.

God the oddest things happen to me. Today I walked in on a colleague as he was sitting on the toilet seat. And then I watch in green envy as Lisa and her baby come in and are magnets for attention - not fair, I think. I should just get pregnant and have a baby and everyone would go ohhh and ahhh over me. The five-year old self was emerging again and it wasn't good.

I was also losing my thoughts again, ideas ricocheting around, which got me thinking that the meds have done their wonders and left, kind of like the men in my life. Even though the date said I seemed so happy and positive, inside I felt blue. If anything though I hope that ADD won't prevent me from listening, which I struggled to do as the date spoke.

I need to remember these things, because in a relationship I need to be cognizant of what he likes too, I need to remember these things, he likes jazz music, he likes meat, he likes Italian, likes travel (has been to Morocco and lived in Japan). And although it wasn't an instant attraction I felt a gut sense that maybe this could be it. The night ended with a glimmer of hope.

Back to Square One

Am I relegated to a life of lost and found, apologies, and what could be called the Valley Girl syndrome: totally clueless.

Is it completely hopeless? First I lost the phone on the island during the race, then the scarf at the theater the other night, then the moleskin notebook while watching the "Bee Movie" with the sister. I know the dad says that I need to adopt the "less is more" mantra. If I did less, carried less, worried less, wouldn't it just solve this ADD thing at the snap of a finger? I wish.

I had a sense that the magic pills (aka the meds) had worn off about three or four weeks ago, when things became harried, and I began feeling tired, jittery and back to my old self once again. I started feeling like a beheaded rooster as I taught swimming the other day, running in and out of the pool in turnstile fashion and screaming at the students, "kick harder, try harder, what is going on here!!?" I felt like the Meryl Steep character in the Devil Wears Prada. In this case it should have been the Devil Wears Speedo. Maybe I was really yelling at myself, frustrated at myself for making so many F-ups. I sometimes wonder what is the better or worse or two evils: fracturing your spine, being half deaf, or living the rest of your life with a scattered brain, and on top of that, code orange anxiety.

Over the weekend I forced myself back to the parents' home upstate, not wanting to call anyone, answer the phones, wanting to be a hermit because I am in this unexplainable funk. It's part ADD, part anxiety, and also part realization that at the cusp of 32 I continue to be in the dugout when it comes to the search for Prince Charming. I do not want to be a cat woman, enter the spinster society, or be a lifetime Quirky Aloner.

Earlier today I had a meeting with the kind-hearted OB/GYN doctor, a woman who looked me in the eye after examining and said: "You might want to talk with your doctor, and tell him to adjust the medications, because even in talking with you here there's a high level of anxiety, I feel it."

It felt like a punch in the stomach. Imagine having a friend tell you have bad breath, you might want to try Listerine. But bless her soul -- someone needed to affirm my feelings of fear and depression. The sister said I just look tired. The stepmother says I have too much on my plate. The father says I need to kick the Diet Coke. There was a time when I somewhat enjoyed it, now life feels as thrilling as taking out the garbage.

I've been seriously considering canning the Buddhaman (a.k.a. the Indian psychiatrist). I want to pink slip him, and not go to him anymore, how is he helping? I go to him and he tells me the same thing: you push people away out of fear, you feel like you don't deserve to be loved. Yes, I know I say, but how do you turn the Titanic around.

He clicks down the Bible-thick book of different drugs that he can try on me. There's even this crazy one that you pop 15 minutes before a scary meeting, and it strips you of the fear in Houdini fashion. I want to tell him that life was better when I was ignorant, and thought that ADD was some disease where kids bounced off the walls.

Bottom line, it sucks in that I feel like I need to start all over again, after a year of searching for a psychiatrist, seven months of the magic pills, of telling myself I would not fear talking with she-boss, it has proven to be three steps forward and four steps back.

The only glimmer of hope today was returning home, goggling down the Chinese take out, and fixating on the encounter with the GYN doc today. "There is nothing wrong with your body, everything is fine, but fear is controlling your life. It's learning how to release, relax, I know you can do it," she said.

The Ditziness is the ADD

I forced myself to do the ADD Meetup thing, but I really didn't want to, I mean I signed up to do this and over-committed myself yet again and again and again....

I forced myself to do the ADD Meetup thing, but there were a paltry three members and I just wanted to get out of there. As usual the stories were the same, disorganized, losing interest, getting bored, finding new ways to organize, creating zones, buying colored bins. Most of the time I feel like I'm five years old again.

My dad gave me the cutest piece of advice a few months ago, funny yet demoralizing. "Why don't you create a daily fun hour for yourself, during fun hour you can surf the web, do whatever you want." I think of a clown, a juggler, ponies, and party bags - fun hour for a 31-year-old. And yet I feel like I need a reward of some sort, because at work I feel invisible.

There are funny things about ADD too, like this morning when my harried self asked the deli woman for a cup of ice and then iced coffee, with the ice or without? They got a good laugh out of it, not realizing that, well the ditziness is the ADD, at times I'm completely loopy.